About a PhD

The other day I checked the email account I used when I was a PhD student. I don’t check it often, as these days I receive spam of any kind, more than anything else. This time was different, though: there, in my inbox, was a polite mail from someone in China that asked whether they could translate an article I wrote in their language, for a post on their public web site. Then apparently they went ahead and published it, without waiting for my belated and grateful consent.

This little fact, besides sparking a hint of pride for what I did during my forays in research (OMG someone actually read stuff I wrote! :O), prompted the following questions:

Has it come for me too the time to look back at that period, that work and that world, and reflect on what happened, what went well and what didn’t, in a more dispassionate way than I could have done back then? Should I now write a blog post about this for the new generations of aspirant PhD students? If so, what can I add to the public discourse? What reflections can I write on this topic that have not yet been written in countless other articles (e.g. one, two, three, four, five)? Would I be able to write a few reflections / advice based on my experience without sounding self-referential, inconclusive, condescending or bitter?
Well, challenge accepted. :)

These are the aspects that I enjoyed the most of the PhD:

1. Freedom of growing and learning. I chose to do a PhD mainly because I wasn’t learning and growing professionally fast enough. What I liked in that respect, is that it gave me much more freedom to learn and experiment than I had at that time. Granted, that freedom comes with deadlines, and depends on the PhD advisor and the research project you work on - but it’s something I’ve never experienced before or after the PhD.
2. Ownership. During a PhD you’re encouraged to form, express and defend your own ideas. You sign the research papers you write with your name; you present and defend your thesis based on your experiments. In my experience, this autonomy and ownership is very rarely bestowed upon non-senior people in non-academic settings.
3. Scientific method and writing are awesome. I just fell in love with the process of writing down ideas and conjectures, validate them with experiments and, yes, even writing research papers. Some may argue that much research writing is bloated with weasel or bombastic words: that, to me, is just poor writing. The challenge of scientific writing is indeed about being fact-bound, concise and explaining your ideas in the simplest way possible - which is a very valuable skill in the industry too.
4. Becoming a worldwide expert of something. By the end of the PhD you are a worldwide expert in your (however narrow) field of human knowledge. I think that - apart from the obvious self-esteem points - this can counterbalance the (natural? social-induced?) tendency of posing as self-proclaimed generalist.

A couple of general advice for the aspirant PhD candidates:

1. Don’t do a PhD for money or career reasons (unless you plan to have a career in academia, of course). While the PhD may be required for some job positions, and can definitely give you an edge over the course of your career, don’t expect to land senior positions straight away, just for holding the title. As a matter of fact, in the company I work for, I have colleagues at my same pay grade with bachelor degrees, and some of them are even younger than me. And most of the time that’s totally fine: thankfully, career progress does not only depend on education titles. However, the hiring process in most companies is imperfect for many reasons, and the normal information asymmetry between candidate and interviewer can be further compounded by the perceived gap between academia and industry. So my advice would be: a) take good care of (humbly) explaining your experience in research in layman terms to highlight its concrete value; b) don’t have high expectations.
2. Try a research internship first. Before starting a PhD, especially on a topic you’re not very familiar with, you might want to get a taste of what is like to do research, by applying for research internships. This would allow you to get a closer look at the research world before committing to devote to it 3+ years of your life.¹

Other than that, I confirm, as others have written, that doing research requires mental stamina and determination; that it can be stressful and can be detrimental to your mental health.²

Closing thoughts

Despite the ongoing glorification of the resourceful-college-dropout figure by media and startup promoters, and despite also the ever lowering education requirements for the tech job market, I believe there’s much personal and societal value in the pursue of an advanced education. Last but not least, things can get tough (and Murphy’s law is always valid), but if you do decide to do research, don’t forget to acknowledge the sheer privilege of doing it, and to enjoy the fun parts: they will make it worthwhile. :)